Pink Flag

Wire 'Change Becomes Us'

Pink Flag

Wire 'Change Becomes Us'

“It seemed like a good idea at the time…,” begins the explanation of Wire’s original motivation for ‘Change Becomes Us’. Not only was it a good idea, it actually turned into a superlative one. In spring 2012, Wire’s plan had been to review the rudimentary blueprints of songs that had never made it beyond a few live performances in 1979 and 1980 – a time when the band-members were in creative overdrive yet the band itself was disintegrating.

The aim wasn’t simply to resuscitate and record old songs; in fact, many of them hadn’t become proper songs in the first place, existing only as basic ideas or undeveloped parts. Rather, the objective was to approach that unrealized work as an oblique strategy, a potential springboard for Wire’s contemporary, forward-looking processes – a possible point of departure for new compositions.

This took place with Wire firing on all cylinders, as a four-piece studio entity again, the core line-up of Newman, Graham Lewis and Robert Grey now enhanced by guitarist Matthew Simms. Out of those sessions and subsequent extensive development and production, the ostensible source material became, in the classic Wire tradition, something quite other than what it may have once been – or what it might have become if it had been pursued in 1980. ‘Love Bends’ is a case in point.

Its roots lie in a raucous, octave-hopping number performed in February 1980 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, but it’s now morphed, improbably, into an irresistible, totally modern pop song. Just as improbably, the gently lilting ‘Re-invent Your Second Wheel’ is tangentially connected to a performance piece that was mostly shouting and banging, executed by a stageful of Wire cronies in funny hats. Similarly transformed, ‘& Much Besides’ is a six-minute oneiric-melodic interlude that gives no hint of its putative origins in ‘Eastern Standard’ – a dreary, obtuse three-minute track from the Electric Ballroom concert.

Colin Newman’s songwriting and production on ‘Change Becomes Us’ reimagines the past in ways that ultimately break any substantive connection with it, making entirely new pieces – and these songs themselves enact Wire’s restless drive to become other, often thriving on a fundamental tension between opposing sonic characteristics. With its stop-start, soft-hard, quiet-loud structure, ‘Adore Your Island’ veers between prog and unhinged punk rock, never quite resolving itself; the drama of ‘Attractive Space’ hinges on a progressive splitting of the song’s personality, between its calm, expansive, anthemic orientation and an increasing sense of intensity and claustrophobia.

‘Change Becomes Us’ encapsulates the paradoxical essence of Wire’s creativity. The tendency of these new songs to refuse a single, settled identity is emblematic of the band’s ever-evolving aesthetic – one that’s always hinged on sustained tensions and oppositions: between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the comfortable and the unsettling, the melodic and the brutal, the cerebral and the visceral, the smart and the moronic, the obvious and the inscrutable, the rational and the absurd.

This intrinsic, core ambivalence generates the essential otherness that has characterized Wire’s most memorable and distinctive work – from the epochal innovations of ‘Chairs’Missing’ and ‘154’ to the electronic-pop deconstructions of ‘A Bell Is A Cup…’ to the postmodern-punk expressionism of ‘Send’ and the widescreen lyricism of ‘Red Barked Tree’. ‘Change Becomes Us’ is an undeniable part of that illustrious lineage. Definitely more than just a good idea at the time.

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Wire’s first three albums need no introduction. They are the three classic albums on which Wire’s reputation is based. Moreover, they are the recordings that minted the post-punk form. This was adopted by other bands, but Wire were there first.

These are the definitive re-releases. Each album is presented as an 80-page hardback book – the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. After a special introduction by Jon Savage, Graham Duff provides insight into each track. These texts include recording details, brand-new interviews with band members, and lyrics.

The original album is presented on its own CD, accompanied by discs that feature relevant extra tracks: singles; B-sides; demos; and many previously unreleased songs. Pink Flag is a two-CD set; Chairs Missing and 154 have three CDs each. All audio has been painstakingly remastered (or, in some cases, mastered for the first time).

This stunning set of presentations also includes a range of images from the archive of Annette Green. Wire’s official photographer during this period, Green also shot the covers for Pink Flag and Chairs Missing.

Promotional and informal imagery – in colour and black and white – is featured throughout the books. Most of the photographs have not been seen for 40 years – and many have never been published anywhere before.

These special editions are something every Wire fan will want to own. It has been a number of years since these albums were readily available. The aim with these new vinyl and CD releases is to approximate the original statements as closely as possible, but with remastered audio.

The vinyl releases have the same covers and inners as the originals (minus the Harvest logo).

The digipack CDs have identical tracklistings to their vinyl counterparts.

These versions should be considered Wire’s classic 1970s albums, pure and undiluted.

Tracklisting:LP / CD(Original album)1. I Should Have Known Better2. Two People In A Room 3. The 15th4. The Other Window5. Single K.O. 6. A Touching Display7. On Returning 8. A Mutual Friend 9. Blessed State 10. Once Is Enough 11. Map Ref. 41°N 93°W 12. Indirect Enquiries 13. 40 Versions

Special Edition CD 3:(Studio demos)Sixth Demo sessions1. 40 Versions2. Ignorance No Plea (I Should Have Known Better)3. Blessed State 4. A Touching Display 5. The 15th6. A Mutual Friend 7. Once Is Enough 8. The Other Window

Wire’s first three albums need no introduction. They are the three classic albums on which Wire’s reputation is based. Moreover, they are the recordings that minted the post-punk form. This was adopted by other bands, but Wire were there first.

These are the definitive re-releases. Each album is presented as an 80-page hardback book – the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. After a special introduction by Jon Savage, Graham Duff provides insight into each track. These texts include recording details, brand-new interviews with band members, and lyrics.

The original album is presented on its own CD, accompanied by discs that feature relevant extra tracks: singles; B-sides; demos; and many previously unreleased songs. Pink Flag is a two-CD set; Chairs Missing and 154 have three CDs each. All audio has been painstakingly remastered (or, in some cases, mastered for the first time).

This stunning set of presentations also includes a range of images from the archive of Annette Green. Wire’s official photographer during this period, Green also shot the covers for Pink Flag and Chairs Missing.

Promotional and informal imagery – in colour and black and white – is featured throughout the books. Most of the photographs have not been seen for 40 years – and many have never been published anywhere before.

These special editions are something every Wire fan will want to own. It has been a number of years since these albums were readily available. The aim with these new vinyl and CD releases is to approximate the original statements as closely as possible, but with remastered audio.

The vinyl releases have the same covers and inners as the originals (minus the Harvest logo).

The digipack CDs have identical tracklistings to their vinyl counterparts.

These versions should be considered Wire’s classic 1970s albums, pure and undiluted.

Wire’s first three albums need no introduction. They are the three classic albums on which Wire’s reputation is based. Moreover, they are the recordings that minted the post-punk form. This was adopted by other bands, but Wire were there first.

These are the definitive re-releases. Each album is presented as an 80-page hardback book – the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. After a special introduction by Jon Savage, Graham Duff provides insight into each track. These texts include recording details, brand-new interviews with band members, and lyrics.

The original album is presented on its own CD, accompanied by discs that feature relevant extra tracks: singles; B-sides; demos; and many previously unreleased songs. Pink Flag is a two-CD set; Chairs Missing and 154 have three CDs each. All audio has been painstakingly remastered (or, in some cases, mastered for the first time).

This stunning set of presentations also includes a range of images from the archive of Annette Green. Wire’s official photographer during this period, Green also shot the covers for Pink Flag and Chairs Missing.

Promotional and informal imagery – in colour and black and white – is featured throughout the books. Most of the photographs have not been seen for 40 years – and many have never been published anywhere before.

These special editions are something every Wire fan will want to own. It has been a number of years since these albums were readily available. The aim with these new vinyl and CD releases is to approximate the original statements as closely as possible, but with remastered audio.

The vinyl releases have the same covers and inners as the originals (minus the Harvest logo).

The digipack CDs have identical tracklistings to their vinyl counterparts.

These versions should be considered Wire’s classic 1970s albums, pure and undiluted.

NINE SEVENS is the first of a series of re-releases of Wire's 70's catalogue, released for the first time worldwide on the pinkflag label.

The 7" box set itself is a unique collection of Wire 7"s recorded in the period 1977-1980 and includes 6 singles released originally on Harvest, one originally released on Rough Trade and one single recorded in 1980 that was never released on 7’.

The 9th item is the EP given away with the first pressings of the album 154.

Everything is freshly re-mastered from the original archive analogue sources. Housed in a stylish, sturdy upright box featuring a new cover concept by Bruce Gilbert, produced in an edition of 1500 and will not be repressed.